Google for Nonprofits Blog: April 2011

Celebrating Arbor Day with Save The Redwoods League and Google Earth

Friday, April 29, 2011

(Cross posted from the Official Google Blog)
From time to time we invite guests to post about topics of interest and we’re pleased to have Emily Limm join us for U.S. Arbor Day. Emily is the science director for the non-profit Save the Redwoods League and is studying the impact of climate change on the redwood forests of northern California. To raise awareness about the League’s research, she worked with Google Earth Outreach to model old-growth redwoods on Google Earth. In this post, Emily shares her ideas on how technology and citizen science can help scientific research. -Ed.coastal redwood forestsSave the Redwoods LeagueGoogle Earth Outreach teamJedediah Smith Redwoods State ParkdownloadRedwood WatchiNaturalist.orga nearby parksubmit it onlineGoogle Maps APIs

An observation of a coast redwood submitted to the Redwood Watch on iNaturalist.org.Note: There are plenty of parallel projects going on around the world, so if you don’t live near redwoods, consider participating in one of the other iNaturalist.org citizen science projects.Posted by Emily Limm, Ph.D., Director of Science and Planning, Save The Redwoods League

Getting Started With Google Places

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

More and more people are searching for businesses and organizations (like yours!) on Google Maps, so it’s important to take a few minutes to customize how your nonprofit is listed... using Google Places!

Your organization’s Google Places page is its listing where you can correct basic information, such as the physical address, website, or email of your organization. You can also enhance your Google Places page by adding images and videos of the work you do, which can allow viewers to link to your photo albums and your YouTube Nonprofit Channel. You can even encourage viewers to “Join Now!” or “Donate Now!” and link to your website to drive membership, donations, or to guide people on how they can help your cause.

For example, GreenInfo Network, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, has added images of the maps they have created for their nonprofit partners to their Google Places page:

Here’s how you can get started:

Go to google.com/places, and click “Get Started” and then “List your business”. Another way is to search for your nonprofit on Google Maps, click on the result, and then click on “Business Owner?”
You may need to verify that you are, in fact, the owner, and this can be checked with either a phone call or a snail-mail postcard to the organization's address. Once verified, you can start enhancing the Places page for your organization.
Add or edit (if necessary) the physical location of your organization. You can also move the marker to the correct location on the map. (Remember: these aren't individual projects or field locations where you work; this is the location of your organization’s headquarters or regional branches.)
Add photos, images, and videos of the work that you do. If applicable, add a description, encouraging people to “Join Now!” or “Donate Now!” with a link to your website.
Confirm the other details for your listing, make any changes as necessary, and click “Submit”.

That’s all there is to it! Google Places is available in numerous countries, and is free, so get started now at google.com/places! Google Places is even available on your Android or iPhone device, so people can find your nonprofit on-the-go.

After you’ve updated the Places page for your organization, do you feel ready to get creative with more mapmaking? You can build custom maps of your work with our Google Maps and Google Earth tutorials, such as Creating Maps using My Maps - specifically designed for nonprofits!

Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach Team

Non-Profit Industry Benchmark Report For Education

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

monthly benchmarking series.NTEE non-profit categories.

Getting Started With Google Grants

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I’ve Been Awarded a Google Grant! Yay! Now What?

First, congrats! If your organization has been accepted to Google Grants, you’ve joined a growing group of nonprofits that are harnessing the power of online advertising to reach people across the globe. With Google AdWords in-kind advertising, your nonprofit can do many things: promote your website, raise awareness for your cause, recruit volunteers, attract new donors, market fundraising events and more.

That all sounds great, but you are new to online advertising. How do you actually use AdWords to achieve these goals? Sit tight and have no fear. The Google Grants Team has some handy tips just for you!

1. Structure, Structure, Structure

Structuring your AdWords account effectively can have a big impact on the success of your AdWords campaigns. Your account is broken down into three levels: account, campaigns, and ad groups. Each campaign should focus on one main service or offering you want to promote. Handy Tip: Look at your website and organize your account structure to match your website structure. Let us show you what we mean:

With this organized structure, you can easily see which campaigns are performing well and which need help! For example, you may notice that your Volunteer Campaign has a good clickthrough rate (CTR) and a high number of sign-ups, but you do not see the same results in your Donations Campaign. This alerts you that you may need to adjust your keywords, ad text or the landing page that you are directing users to for this campaign.

2. Keywords are Key!

Keywords are the heart of your search-based advertising campaigns. When selecting keywords, think like a user. If you were a user looking to volunteer at an animal shelter, you might search on ‘animal shelter volunteer’, ‘volunteer with dogs’, or ‘help animal shelter’. Brainstorm all of your keyword ideas, and then organize those keywords in themed lists.

Each of those themed lists will be their own Ad Group. That way, the ad text can specifically match the keywords in that group. Now when a user searches on ‘volunteer with animals’, your ad will say ‘volunteer with animals‘, which is highly relevant to the words the user searched on and will entice them to click on your ad.

Handy Tip: Getting stuck? Need more keyword ideas? Use the Keyword Tool!

3. Make Your Ads Sing!

Your goal is to attract users to your website. In order to do that, your ads should be simple, enticing, and relevant to what users are searching for. Follow our handy ad text optimization tips to make your ads sing!

Keywords in Ad Text: Include keywords in your ad text, especially in your title. Whenever a user types that keyword and sees your ad, the keyword will appear in bold font within your ad. This helps draw the user’s attention to your ad.

Call-to-Action: Include a call-to-action such as ‘sign up now’ or ‘donate online’. This encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

Clear Message: Use clear and specific ad text that highlights the benefits of your product or service or why your organization is unique .

Choose the Best Destination URL: Take the user to the specific landing page that has the information or service described in your ad. For example, if your ad is asking for a donation, take the user to the landing page where they can find out how to donate. If users do not find what is promised as soon as they arrive, they are more likely to leave your website.

Posted by Nikki Lopez, Google Grants Team

Google Apps Highlights

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Cross posted on The Official Google Blog.
Recipient suggestion features graduate from Gmail Labsrecipient suggestion features

Pagination and better printing for documents
Google Docs speeds up collaboration right in the browser between classmates and colleagues, but people often want to see how documents will look on paper before actually printing. Last Tuesday we advanced Google Docs another notch by adding pagination—the ability to see where page breaks fall. We also made document printing a whole lot better on Chrome. Printing is now a simpler operation right from the browser’s “File” menu, and what you see in your browser is exactly what you’ll get on paper.

Improvements to spreadsheet printing, too
As of last Monday, you can now print spreadsheets from your mobile phone with Cloud Print, building on the mobile document and email printing capabilities we announced earlier this year. You can print from most mobile browsers that support HTML5 to any cloud-connected printer. We also made improvements to spreadsheet printing from desktop browsers, with new options for printing spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office interface improvements
If your school or business wants some of Google Docs’ collaboration magic in familiar Microsoft Office software without upgrading Office or deploying SharePoint®, then we think you’ll like Google Cloud Connect. People can work together on the same files at the same time in Word, PowerPoint® and Excel® without the agony of attachments. We recently added 38 new language interfaces and a top feature request: the ability to minimize the Google Cloud Connect toolbar.

Better Android security and productivity for businesses
We recently treated our business and education customers to three new Android features: storage encryption for Android 3.0+ devices, a streamlined contacts experience that makes it faster to find and connect with people in your organization and the ability for users to locate and secure lost or stolen Android 2.2+ devices without burdening IT administrators.

Who's gone Google?
Since our last update here, over 60,000 businesses have moved to Google Apps. We’ve profiled quite a few on the Google Enterprise Blog recently, including Boxx Group, South Carolina REALTORS, Just Salad, 3Tailer, and our favorite switch story of all, Contoso.

Thousands of schools, nonprofits and other organizations made the move as well. Welcome to Boise State University, Edina Public Schools, ESSEC Business School, Monash University, Oakwood Junior School, the Georgia Department of Corrections and The Phoenix of New Orleans.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Getting Started With YouTube

Thursday, April 14, 2011

YouTube’s Nonprofit Program1. Content is still king

Tell serial stories. Engage viewers with a series of videos that tell a story around a specific theme, and keep them coming back for more. Once you've created a few episodes, put them into a playlist. This allows you to develop several video narratives targeted at particular demographics. A good example is Rainforest Action Network’s “Greenwash of the Week” series or “Oxfam’s Green Granny” series.

Respond to current events. Address relevant news stories by posting videos that explain your position. You can then embed them in emails to your supporters — a video message can be more effective than a text-laden email. Also, users are probably more likely to be searching for topics currently in the news and may be more likely to find your video organically through the YouTube search bar. You’ll want to be sure to tag your video with timely and relevant words.

Make your audience part of the video. Using YouTube annotations, you can create a “choose your own adventure”-style video, which puts the viewer in the driver’s seat and allows them to decide their video “fate.” Two great nonprofit examples of this style are “A Different Ending,” a campaign combating knife crime in the U.K., and “That’s Not Cool,” a campaign from the Ad Council about staying safe online.

2. You don’t need a Hollywood budget to succeedYouTube’s Good Work program3. It’s OK to follow the leaderFreda sneezing pandaDancing MattKeyboard Cat“The Pink Glove Dance,”J.K. Wedding playbook.Posted by Ramya Raghavan, YouTube Team

Recommendations When You Want Them: The +1 Button

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

the +1 button+1 webmaster sitethis website.Posted by AnnMarie Hill, Google Grants Team

Battling "Below First Page Bid" Status

Thursday, April 7, 2011

at some pointAd RankQuality ScoreDiagnosis 1: Chosen keyword is too general.
Remedy: Focus only on what works.

Add Negative Keywords to eliminate irrelevant impressions and improve your clickthrough rate. You can generate ideas for negative keywords by using the Search Term Report.

Use the Keyword Tool to find more specific keywords. These are typically more relevant to the user’s query and have a higher clickthrough rate than a more general keyword.

Experiment with different keyword match types by limiting matching on your keywords to a smaller set of user queries. On average, phrase match and exact match keywords can outperform broad match ones by limiting when your ads show to more relevant variations of your keywords.

Diagnosis 2: Keyword Quality Score is low.
Remedy: Refresh, refine, and experiment with existing ads & keywords.Quality Score

Prevent poorly performing ads with low clickthrough rate from showing by pausing them.

Experiment with new ads that contain your keyword in them so that searchers know that you’re relevant to what they are looking for. Try using keyword insertion ads to accomplish this more efficiently.

Reorganize your campaigns into tightly themed ad groups. Creating different ad groups focused on a specific theme helps to ensure that your ad text is as relevant as possible to your keywords, which is important for Quality Score. For example, ad text which refers to donations shouldn’t be associated with keywords about volunteering. Do this within the AdWords interface or using AdWords Editor.

Change the display URL of the ad to something more specific, using a more descriptive URL for each of your ad groups.

Add negative keywords and utilize keyword match types to make sure that your ads show on only the most relevant searches.

Diagnosis 3: Competition is high.
Remedy: Focus on reaching your exact audience with a message relevant to them.

Location target away! You can create a basic campaign, then customize it for each location that you target so that users in your target audience can see how relevant your ads are to them.

Create ads that have your keywords in them - use keyword insertion ads to dynamically generate relevant ads.

Boost clicks and clickthrough rate with the Ad Extensions which are the best fit for the goals of each campaign! For example, Ad Sitelinks extensions can give you more real estate on Search and give users the option of a variety of different landing pages; Location Extensions will show your organization’s geographic location in the ad text to help you focus on local searches.

Celebrating Positive Change

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Google for NonprofitsMake-a-Change sitebuilding a school in Tanzaniagoing paperlessprotecting our coastline

sharewww.facebook.com/GoogleForNonprofits@googlenonprofit
Posted by Kirsten Cahill Olsen, Google for Nonprofits Team

Happy 8th Birthday, Google Grants!

Friday, April 1, 2011

As we celebrate our 8th birthday, we feel truly inspired by all the incredible work you do and the way you use Google Grants to achieve your missions, reach your constituents, raise awareness about your cause and succeed in the world of online marketing. So, we’d like to celebrate our birthday by sharing eight great pieces of Grantee wisdom from this year’s pool of extraordinary testimonials. Thank you for making Google Grants a part of your organization.Friendship Circle We have used Google Grants to promote Friendship Circle's many different programs and activities. In addition we are using Google Grants to point people to our blog. Tzvi Schectman - Family Coordinator, Friendship CirclespcaLA Constantly monitor and use your Google AdWords. Use the tools provided by Google - especially keyword generators. Run reports. Change things that aren't working. Run ads for everything you have to offer! Miriam Davenport - Sr. Director of Development, spcaLANatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Use keyword insertion! I finally just tried it and I'm seeing immediate results (higher click-through rates). Kim Ranney - Online Marketing Manager, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)International Finance Corporation Active management of the Google Grants campaigns is crucial. In addition, all traffic is not necessarily quality traffic. It's important to manage the campaigns in such a way that you're continuously targeting/reaching high-quality leads, rather than just barnstorming. Seth Fleisher - Product Manager, SME Toolkit, International Finance CorporationThe Writer's Center Setting a schedule to update/manage your AdWords can prove helpful, as well as designating a specific staff member for the task. Kyle Semmel - Publications & Communications Manager / Interim Director, The Writer's CenterIndian Land Tenure Foundation Make sure to link your AdWords account with Google Analytics so you can easily track the effectiveness of your ads based on the goals for your website. Pay attention to the popular, high performing keywords. Make sure your ads are designed to maximize these keywords and make sure that the content on your website matches what a user would expect to find using these search terms. If a user is lured in by an ad for one thing and finds something entirely different on your website, this will increase bounce rates and potentially damage your credibility. Erin Dennis - Communications Specialist, Indian Land Tenure FoundationArtist Organized Art, Inc. Take advantage of local, regional and global targeting. Use the AdWords client side tools. Optimize your campaigns. Develop your agendas in terms of campaigns and use the "opportunities" Google is regularly finding for you... it's literally the benefit of a team of really, really smart people advancing your organization's cause. Joshua Selman - President, Artist Organized Art, Inc. Big Cat Rescue The best way to make the most of your Google Grant is to check in every day to see what is happening via Google Alerts and customizing your AdWords to meet those changing needs. Carole Baskin - CEO, Big Cat Rescue Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

For Nonprofits Blog

Celebrating Arbor Day with Save The Redwoods League and Google Earth

Getting Started With Google Places

Non-Profit Industry Benchmark Report For Education

Getting Started With Google Grants

Google Apps Highlights

Getting Started With YouTube

Recommendations When You Want Them: The +1 Button

Battling "Below First Page Bid" Status

Celebrating Positive Change

Happy 8th Birthday, Google Grants!

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